I am feeling some deep emotions this morning. I live on the east side of the Big Island of Hawai`i. This island is the product of five volcanoes, two of which are still active. Kilauea is currently erupting. The eruption began January 3, 1983.

June 27 this year, the eruption changed its course and began to flow northeast toward the town of Pahoa. It is a pahoehoe lava flow and is slow moving. In the last four months, it has traveled thirteen miles and is still on the move.

I do not live in Pahoa or anywhere threatened by the lava flow, but I have friends who are in the projected path of the lava flow, and it is scary to think of their plight. I have a friend who works at Pahoa Elementary School, which is closing today to prepare many of the teachers and students to transfer to a new, temporary campus being built in the parking lot of a high school in Kea`au. It is a stressful time for many people here.

Kenoepoko Elementary School lies in the projected path of the lava flow, and it closed yesterday indefinitely. The students there held an assembly on their last day. I know one of the kumu (Hawaiian teacher or guide to learning) at the school. He said the students were grateful for the ceremony to mark the possible end of the school.

Lava is a sacred manifestation of the Goddess of Fire and Volcanoes known as Pele. Native Hawaiians welcome her when she comes. Another friend grew up in Kalapana, a town covered by lava early in the current eruption. His grandmother’s house was nearly covered, and his grandmother prepared by cleaning everything, saying she had to prepare for an honored guest. Her house was spared and still stands.

Months ago at meetings organized by the county to inform people about the coming lava and the changes it will bring, many people wanted to know about the possibility of diverting the lava flow. County officials and scientists from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory of the US Geological Survey gave clear evidence that diversions would not be attempted.

The most important reason against trying to divert the lava flow is simple: it doesn’t work. It has never worked. The army bombed Mauna Loa in the 1930s to stop lava flowing toward Hilo. It didn’t work. Videos of the 1960 eruption at Kapoho can be seen on YouTube by typing in “Kapoho eruption.” There are many to chose from. When the eruption began, large berms were constructed around the town. They did not work. The lava surmounted all the berms and destroyed the town. The current eruption has produced 350,000 cubic meters of lava each day over the last 31 years. The present flow is producing 100,000 cubic meters of lava each day. This mass of molten rock will not stop.

The other most important reason not to try to divert the lava is also simple: since it won’t stop, it has to go somewhere. Diverting the present flow only places other people in danger. Whose property is more valuable? Who chooses which property should be lost to the lava?

The lava flow is approaching the main road through Pahoa today, and it will cross a major highway soon. Once it crosses the highway, a large part of the island will be cut off from the rest of the island. Gravel roads have been cut through the rain forest to provide access to the people who live on the south side of the flow, but it will require slow driving. If the lava continues on its path all the way to the ocean, the gravel roads will be useless, too, and a third road is being made across the lava flows to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the effect of what is happening. It has made me think on a much larger time scale than I normally use. I think it’s normal for each of us to think of time in terms of our life span or perhaps of the span of our families. I am now thinking of things on geological time. These volcanoes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean have been erupting much longer than homo sapiens have walked the Earth. We are still newcomers. Kilauea will continue to blanket herself in new lava for many more thousands of years. We are travelers. She is permanent.

Besides time, I am also thinking about space. Space for people, I believe, equals the ground we walk on and the places we inhabit. We think of property as being owned. Pele is proving who owns the land. This is her land. We dance on it for a time, but it is always hers.

Lives are being altered. Histories are being written. We can fight, and we will lose. Or we can accept, celebrate, and welcome the changes.

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I am an avid follower of many things termed New Age. I study astrology. I don’t merely read horoscopes. I have studied enough to know sun-sign horoscopes printed in the paper are hogwash. I also read tarot cards, and I have witnessed them foretell events with accuracy.

However, from first hearing about it, I have bristled at the idea of the Law of Attraction. Crudely put, the idea of the law is that by maintaining a certain thought coupled with certain feelings, we can influence events. My personal experience with this notion demonstrates that it doesn’t work for me. Perhaps it works for some, but it does not work for me. It has proved fallible time and time again.

I think the Law of Attraction is a self-defense mechanism for humans who find themselves with a lack of control. I am not sure it’s helpful. At its simplest, the law teaches that it is possible for us to manipulate the Universe to give us what we want. Manipulation is control.

What I have learned in life is I lack control for much of what happens. I have also learned not to fear this lack. Instead, I go with the flow.

I have spent a lot of time in meditation, and I asked for clarity today. I also asked for guidance with the meditative process. I start meditation with something like a time of prayer when I ask for circumstances to be favorable for literally everything on the planet and for individuals who are close to me.

I did receive guidance today, and the prayer portion of my meditation was very quick. I thought only words when I had used sentences before. I got to a regular place of deep meditation as happens, and instead of what I normally experience, I was shown scenes of some events I desire.

All this is to say, it is dawning on me that we control very little of the grand arch of our lives. It is important to continue to act on our thoughts and ideas, but there is a time when we must sit back after we have exercised our wills and simply allow events to unfold naturally. We must accept.

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There is little in popular culture that attracts me. I do not know if it has to do with middle age or with growing spiritual awareness. I avoid it and mainstream media, because they upset my peace of mind, which I value highly.

I don’t watch television. Truthfully, I should say I watch it very rarely. I used to be allergic to it. I couldn’t sit still in front of the machine. Videos online used to have the same effect. They made me squirm uncontrollably. That changed. I can physically sit in front of the TV now and watch, but I honestly hate most of what I see. It’s garbage. Recently, I watched the short series Vicious starring Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi on PBS. I enjoyed that. It was well done. I have not seen anything else in many years, and in my opinion, I’m fine. I haven’t missed a thing.

I can’t read pop fiction. I like reading, and I spend a lot of time doing it. I read books that interest me. I recently finished Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon for the umpteenth time in the last thirty years. Seriously, I have read it too many times to count. It’s good. I recommend it. Right now, I’m reading two books about reaching the spirit world through ritual body postures. The books are fascinating. One is Ecstatic Body Postures by Belinda Gore, and the other is Where the Spirits Ride the Wind by Dr. Felicitas Goodman. I also read a lot about theatre, acting, and directing for the stage. I read good books. Please, don’t get me started on James Patterson.

I don’t watch the news from mainstream media. Yes, I am very much an American, but I get most of my news from BBC and The Guardian. I like the new news website Vox very much.

I never have the radio on in my car. I can’t tell you anything about pop music. I have wide-ranging tastes in music, but they tend toward lyrical and classical. I recently started listening to the British singer Sam Smith. He’s very good.

I like the artist Andy Warhol’s quote very much:

Once you ‘got’ Pop, you could never see a sign again the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.

I love art, and I’ve seen some signs that were truly high art. There was one for a liquor store on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas, Texas, that was spectacular. It was like a space ship landed on the corner with lights blinking and exploding all over the place. It was gorgeous. Yes, I like the pop art of Andy Warhol. I’m contradictory. Forgive me.

I love America, too. It’s messy. Sometimes there are ugly bits that force their way into view, but on the whole, America is all right. I’m an optimist. Forgive me.

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I’m thinking about me today. As I mentioned in the previous post, I have read Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon over the last thirty years or so too many times to count. Last night as I lay in bed drifting into sleep, I began to question why.

The book has been a companion to me. It’s been with me everywhere. I’ve read it in bed, in easy chairs, in trains and planes, and on the beach. It’s frustrated me and comforted me. It has assailed me with riddles, and it has spoken clear words of encouragement.

I’m rereading it now, and its message seems so distinctly simple.

Yes, there is a lot we don’t control about our world. Yes, there are powerful forces who exert control over vast amounts of energy, and They are not friendly. However, those elites do not hold quite as much control as They imagine. They are not omniscient.

Resistance is real, and it works. We can play the part of double agents, living in Their systems and simultaneously sabotaging them.

Connection is key. The elite divide us. We must come together. We can touch each other, and They can’t stop us. Through small acts, we can thwart Them, and we win when we do.

Their systems – the rocket – crave sacrifice. They destroy. But even that technology of death connects. The launcher and the dying are one in the flight of the rocket.

What can we preterite do in the face of such radical destruction? Look to our hero Slothrop. We can narrow our Delta-t band. Live as much now, leaving the past and the future to Them. Live! It’s the thing that scares Them most.

* * *

Why do I read Gravity’s Rainbow?

My relationship with the book is about my relationship with myself. I can see myself maturing as I have read it over and over. I discovered me in its pages.

I have read passages that utterly confused me. They were times I did not know my own way through the world. I have read dream sequences with tangled words, and I have felt peace. These were times I was grateful for the turmoil around me. I saw the path through the rubble of my life.

I have no illusions before me as I read it now. I am one with myself, and the pages dissolve as I turn them. The words register and leave their impressions, and I smile.

The book is complex, but so is the world They have made for us to pick our ways through. We must each bring our dead as we join the resistance, and we must touch each other. We must bare our skin and open to our lashes we lay on ourselves. We must own our selves. We must touch.

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I read it first while still an undergraduate in the early 80s. We’d read Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 in a class, and I liked it. I decided to read what was purported to be his best work, which had won the National Book Award, and I was not disappointed. I remember standing in my English professor’s little office, and she asked me what made me think I could possibly tackle such a book.

“Arrogance?” I quipped.

She guffawed and slapped her desk.

Gravity’s Rainbow is a puzzle to many readers. It confounded me for a very long time. I think the best way to describe it is entwined.

The book opens in a dream of a labyrinthine knotting of passageways and trails that lead steadily into a deeper place, a level further below, revealing still new permutations of existence than were readily available at first glance. People trudge through the space neither succumbing nor escaping. They simply move.

A master storyteller like Pynchon knows the opening must reveal the whole in some way. This opening language weaves in and out of various levels of understanding of the dream, and we’re alerted to the notion we will journey through a maze that will lead us deeper into the story, the characters, the themes, the words, and even ourselves as readers.

I don’t think there’s anything extra in this book. I have read it so many times I’ve lost count. That’s honest. I’m rereading it again, and it’s very clear this time through. I’ve had questions about the book for many years, decades. I am getting answers this time.

Yes, the language is convoluted at times. It’s serpentine, and it’s done for a reason. I think the times when the words double back on themselves and lead the reader to the place where he questions what he’s just read and where he is in the text are to push him out of his easy chair and into a new way of knowing, a new way of questioning how a book and a reader are supposed to relate to each other.

The scientist is observer and observed. The rocket is one with launcher and victim. Separation is a myth invented by our minds to control our environments. The reader is whole in the act of reading, and the book is not an object but a function in the equation. Connection is key. Singularity as opposed to duality seeps through the language. We are all whole in our beings as we move through our days. Verbs are vital.

“A screaming comes across the sky” is the opening sentence. There are only six words, and two of them function like verbs. They act on the reader. They move. “Screaming” conjures a host of terrors, nightmares, banshees. “Comes” sits there simple enough. Surely. It’s a small word. Or does it act in another way here? Where does it put us, the readers? Aren’t we left underneath the noise listening to it peak and recede, leaving us shaking in our boots and thankful for escape? We’re sorry enough for the poor sods under the rocket when it stopped screaming and left only dust and rubble, but really, better him than me, eh?

Our hero, Tyrone Slothrop, educates us as he hops across Europe. He’s an American lost and helpless amongst these tired Europeans. He grows in his knowledge of the trappings of his own life and its tie to the rocket, and he is transformed into the Rocketman when he is liberated from the ties binding him to his Earthly existence. He transcends.

I am enjoying this read through the book immensely. The words shine on the pages or the screen, as it is. Yes, I like my e-reader very much. I carry a library in my palm. The world’s books await. It’s a gift, and I like it.

I had so many questions when I read it the first few times. There was so much that eluded me, and now I see it was my own life I was questioning as a young man. I’m not young any more. I’m middle aged. Like Slothrop, I’ve evolved. I don’t fight the words. They lie there. I take them in. They work their wonders in my mind calling up all sorts of ideas and pictures and feelings and memories. Together, we make a story.

The night’s sounds trilling through my window while I read are just as much a part of the event as the book and I are. It’s all there, and nothing gets left out.

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I stopped giving medical advice to friends suffering from the common cold a very long time ago. Decades actually. I figured out no one – absolutely no one – ever took my ideas and tried them. They didn’t really want to hear what I had to offer.

Somewhere along the line, I took that knowledge and applied it to the rest of my life. I stopped speaking about many of my ideas for situations, unless I was asked. Even then, I would word what I said carefully. I would make it plain that my ideas worked for me, and they may or may not work for others.

I have noticed that few people hear what I say wholly. They hear what they think is advice, and they politely ignore it.

When did it happen? When did we stop listening to each other? When did we start listening selectively to reinforce our own preconceptions?

For example, I follow astrology, but I don’t pretend it’s a subject that most people wish to hear about. I don’t talk about it very much at all. I have studied it a great deal, and I am fully aware that the horoscopes published in the paper and on a vast number of websites are rubbish. It is a complex science, and many variables go into making an accurate assessment of what astrology reveals about our lives. Nowadays, people believe astrology is nothing more than the short quips written in the newspaper. That’s a wrong assumption. Still, I keep quiet.

For the most part, I am very careful with my choice of words when I write or speak. I avoid “you.” It erects barriers. It sounds accusatory even in benign situations.

I forget which book it was in, but the classicist Anne Carson wrote something to the effect that every word is a blow. By “blow,” she means a physical hit. Words can do that. They can reach across the space that divides people, and they can affect others positively and negatively.

Maybe that’s why we stopped listening. We’re protecting ourselves from unwarranted punishments and judgements thrown at us unnecessarily. Is it just defense?

On some level, I’m sure it is defense. There are other times when I know motives are more nefarious. People simply refuse to hear words that question their preconceptions. They fear they might be wrong about an idea. Being wrong requires contrition and change. Pride does not allow many people to acknowledge they may need to think anew.

And there may lie the crux of the matter – fear. It is powerful.

Fear walls us in. It divides us. It eats at our core and causes all manner of difficulties. Importantly, it blocks proper hearing. When we fear others may have ideas better than our own, we fear we may need to be open and vulnerable and change.

Fear is really quite simple. We learn it immediately when we’re born. Our first fear is that we might not be fed. It’s that primal. It is seated in the stomach.

Perhaps at the most basic level, we don’t listen carefully, because we fear hunger.

This is my writing.

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